UK advertising regulator, ASA clears Microsoft ad targeting Gmail privacy standard

The UK's advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has found nothing objectionable in a radio ad for Microsoft Outlook after complaints that it implied Outlook offered greater privacy than Gmail.

The ad features a character which articulates a sentence in a seemingly indecipherable language, that Microsoft says Gmail users would need to adopt if they wanted to guard the privacy of their communication.

The voice-over then states "Pig Latin may be hard to understand, but you probably need it if you use Gmail, because Gmail scans every word of your e-mails to sell ads.

''But Outlook.com doesn't. And you can choose to opt out of personalised ads. To stop Gmail from using your e-mails, use Outlook.com. Learn more at KeepYourEmailPrivate.com and keep your e-mails ivatepray".

The ad was challenged by two complainants.

According to Microsoft it believed that Outlook.com offered greater privacy than Gmail as the latter scanned e-mails for the purpose of targeting ads, but Outlook.com scanned only for viruses and spam as a protective measure.

The software giant further contended that the ad focused on the scanning of e-mails for ad targeting, as this was a ''key distinguishing feature between Outlook.com and Gmail'' which may not be known to users.

The ASA ruling took note of the fact that the ad referred ''explicitly'' to Gmail scanning e-mail content for the purposes of targeting ads, and that this reference preceded the statement "Outlook.com doesn't".

The complainants contended the ad was misleading because they believed that Microsoft was no better and also scanned the contents of the all emails.

According to the ASA it was "standard practice" for email providers to scan for viruses and spam, whereas Google scanned email contents to target ads.

"Because the ad made clear that the privacy claims were in relation to ad targeting, which Outlook.com does not carry out, we therefore concluded that the ad was not misleading," said the ASA.

The ASA ruled that Microsoft's claims did not breach UK rules related to misleading advertising.